Apple has applied for a patent that appears to be a tacit admission of a common complaint about its magical and revolutionary iPad: the Cupertinian slablet is just too damn heavy.
Apple's solution: a light-but-rigid body made not of aluminium, but of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP).
The patent application, "Reinforced …

No....

True

Why has this been granted in the first place?

So what is novel and innovative here? The particular layout of fiber is pretty much what anyone who has worked with composite plastics would recommend for a shell of this shape. The criss-cross fibre layout is old as the world. It has been done with glass fiber for 30+ years now and with carbon fiber for 15+. Just show this to a boat builder, they will ROFL that this has been patented.

US patent office

US Patents

I have to agree with the original post and RTS. But, from what I have seen of the US patent system, patent application ≡ patent granted. It seems that it is the courts job to decide if a patent should have been granted or not.

If this is not the case, I really have to see some of the patents that were rejected (although obviosuly not with any coffee near a keyboard!)

Yep, idea's been around for a while...

http://www.hiddenmysteries.org/conspiracy/facts/fordhemp.html

"...Henry Ford unveiled his biological car. Seventy percent of the body of the cream-colored automobile consisted of a mat of long and short fibers from field straw, cotton linters, hemp, flax, ramie and slash pine. The other 30 percent consisted of a filler of soymeal and a liquid bioresin."

"To prove the vehicle’s superiority, Ford demonstrated the strength of the car body by smashing an ax against the trunk, only to have it bounce off. For some it remains a landmark event."

Actually...

Now what will be said about build quality?

Personally, I am surprised that they care so much about the weight issue, as the solid body has alwasy been touted as USP for Apple and it seems strange they are dumping it becasue some consumers say it is too heavy.

Very few reviews of apple products go by without reference to the metallic bodies being superior to the 'plastic' competition? What will be said now that it will be plastic like most others (albeit carbon fiber reinforced)? (Refer to the numerous reviews of the Samsung Tab criticising it for being 'plasitcy' compared to the iPad)

Bet this patent filing is just the marketing department already starting the PR to be able to say that this is not just 'any' plastic, but 'special unique Apple plastic - carbon fiber reinforced to be precise'. Personally given that I have never experienced other 'plastic' mobile devices breaking (as say my kids plastic toys break), I would have thought 'special' and 'reinforced' plastics were the order of the day to start with ... but where would this leave the Apple retreat from superior aluminium constuction?

F1 cars

Yes, they do

And they give a tacky 'clack' noise when you tap them with a fingernail. As does my very expensive CFC bicycle. CFCs give no 'reassuringly expensive clunk' sort of effect at all, due to their lightness and stiffness they return a very high-pitched noise.

really ?

More prior art being ripped off by Jobs.

Many fibrous materials / laminates are laid counter-grain/ply to add rigidity or strength from my inflatable boat, through fibreglass constructions to carbon fibre constructions used by the aircraft industry.

This confirms the US Patent Office is dumb. Of course, it could some crafty lawyer who is making himself a job for life filing dumb patents which he can defend later.

A title is required...

facepalm..

Why has nobody else in the history of the world ever thought of using lightweight composite materials overlaid with fibres crossing at angles up to and including perpendicular to reduce weight without sacrificing strength?

It could revolutionise sports where weight is important, imagine if you could build race cars or boats or bicycles or (ad nauseum) from these materials for instance..

God bless you St Steve and all those who line your pockets.

*Note, may be sarcasm...

Can't wait for the first lawsuit over clone carbon fibre upgrades to the iPad

More likely...

...that they would make the back out of glass. After all, there is no display and nothing that you need transparency for, but yet it makes the thing look awful when cracked (Just ask the guy at work with a new iPohne!) The stainless back on my iPod has taken a real beating, but a few scratches and dents aside is fine.

As for using the battery cells as the case; the outside of the cells is a pouch. In the business it's known as a coffee pack (it is exactly like the pack your ground coffee comes in). Inside the pouch are very thin layers of aluminium, copper, carbon and insulation. Very easy to pierce the insulation even without piercing the outside. Can you say iPad inferno?

And now for the traditional

Shows how fudged the US Patent system is

This just shows how nuts the US Patent system is. It's a blinking material which has been used by many for years. Heck, Sony already make there lil mini Vaio's out of CFRP already. That's not just prior art, thats computing products for many years already doing this. Then again, Apple might get around this by the fact the iPhad isn't actually anything but a fashion item anyhow.

titanium case, sounds familiar

"You could make an ultra-lightweight metal body using titanium or magnesium I suppose, but it would be VERY expensive."

The original G4 Powerbook was known as the TiBook because the case was made of titanium, mounted around a carbon fibre chassis. Tough and light, but unfortunately titanium seriously affects your wifi signal - the titanium lid would shield the aerial from your router if it was pointing in the wrong direction.

Probably not a good idea to use titanium on something that's designed to work mainly over a wifi connection.

I've emailed the USPO

God bless Internet forum posters

It would seem from reading the comments so far that not one person has bothered to read the patent application, even though it's linked to in the article. Not surprising, I guess, since half the commentors apparently didn't make it all the way through the article's title, which mentions that this is a patent application, not a patent.

For the benefit of folks too lazy to click on the link: Apple is not attempting to patent the idea of a laminate using different layers of carbon fiber going in different directions. The patent is actually extremely narrow and specific, and covers a very specific shape of a device housing made with a very specific tapered design using a very specific set of manufacturing steps, of which the orientation of the carbon fiber layers happens to be only one. The patent application is SO specific that making a case that didn't taper at the edge probably wouldn't violate it.

^this

The exact specification of materials is making this more restrictive if anything, and the diagram of the layering is for the fact that they are exposed at the corners (not read it in detail, but would presume something to do with how it wraps around/is attached at the corners of the case).

It's like complaining that with a new motherboard design someone was trying to patent copper tracks, just because the materials are specified, doesn't mean apple will own the rights to the materials, for fairly obvious reasons.

In fact, you could make something the exact same shape and method, from a non-layered material, and this patent wouldn't cover it, or you could still use the same materials apple are proposing, but make the frame out of something else* (though it could in theory cover papier maché given the wording of claim 1, but only if you make a frame and it's cover separately, then glue them together (e.g., not if you build the layers up on the frame itself, or if the frame is made from anything other than more papier maché))

*which they presumably can't patent since this is how most of the other stuff made of this kind of material works.

User Error

Hard to blame Apple

Or any other company who files patents that seem obvious. It's quite clear at this point that any company which doesn't try to patent an idea, no matter how face-palmingly obvious it may seem, is just leaving themselves open to a future attack by some patent troll holding company in the future.

No matter how stupid the patent seems, these companies have to grab them first, because every idea you don't have a patent on is a billion dollar legal torpedo that somebody else can use to sink your product.

Not so Heavy Metal

As Apple has purchased worldwide exclusive rights to use materials developed by LiquidMetal they may decide not to go down the carbon fiber route and substitute carbon fiber with metal. At the very end of the patent application it says:

[0052]The foregoing has been generally described with respect to particular embodiments and methods of manufacture. It will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that certain modifications may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of this disclosure. For example, a fiber other than carbon may be used as a strengthening or stiffening element. As one example, certain metals may be used instead, or another type of plastic may be used. Accordingly, the proper scope of this disclosure is set forth in the following claims.

Still, if you want to see some seriously strong and thin carbon fiber then have a look at this http://www.stylepark.com/en/established-und-sons/surface-table

how in the name of???

hwo the hell can this even be contemplated as patentable. cross-meshing of composites in this manner is standard best practice...its a known technique and used everywhere.

oh well, at least it might improve the wireless and 3G signal in this device.... i guess they'll try to patent that as well.... 'we hereby present a novel way of getting better wireless signal in a portable device by removing materials such as metal' FFS !